Jack Ballington, Forester

by John Trotwood Moore

Now I stood looking down on the double log-cabin that was his home. All around it was peace and calmness. Here had I learned under Dr. Gottlieb to love the flowers, and the trees, and his books.

What a picture his home made! A great wooded blue grass hill rose gradually, slope on slope, above it, and on a little plateau sat the solid log-cabin. At the foot of the slope and running like a horseshoe around it, was a bubbling stream, coming from the hills to the north, circling around and running into the valley below. Over this, a rustic foot-bridge led to the house. The meadows lay in front of it all. I stood back and wondered how that young pioneer had known so accurately and artistically where to place this cabin? Had it been placed ten yards either way, to right or left, it would have ruined the center of the background of trees beyond, and fifty feet further in front would have placed it too far down the dead level of the center.

In stately distances around stood maples, beeches and poplars, some towering high above the cabin. Lengthwise to the rustic bridge it stood, a beautiful, solid home of walnut, and the red heart of the cedar, its dark, rich logs chinked with the white cement of the lime hills. Clear across the front ran the big porch, solid floored; both ends flanked with purple stars of clematis, hanging overhead, and drooping low over the entrance its great masses of bloom.

The orchard, of apple, peach, plum, and cherry trees, lay off to the right. The old-fashioned flowers were all to the right and the pine tree towered over them all.

I raised the latch and entered. Dr. Gottlieb stood before me, framed by shelves of dried flowers and herbs, a small man with a large head, kind blue eyes. The broad brow wrinkled into its smile as he saw me. I pointed to the stone-crop running across the hill. "Oh, Dr. Gottlieb," I cried, "what is it that in one night makes the bare spots so beautiful?"

He quit his books and came forward, taking both of my hands in his. "Jack, Jack, my boy, you have come back to us again—and from the Fatherland—the Fatherland! ... Let me hold your hand—it has touched the soil of the Fatherland—let me look into your eyes, they have seen the Rhine!" There were tears in his blue eyes.

"Do you remember how it changes every spring, Dr. Gottlieb?" I asked, pointing to the distant crowned hills, the rainbow of stone-crop beneath, and the level stretches of pasture land.

He smiled as he looked across at the crimson covering of the bare hillside. "Ay; but I've not been idle, Jack, since you left. You remember what I had done before you went away—fifteen hundred species all catalogued in my book." He turned and pointed to the glass shelves around. "Now I have added four hundred more."

We talked long over our pipes. He had saved some rare old German ale in cobwebbed bottles, and these we broke in honor of my return. I had to go over my entire life in Germany, and all the four years' work there. As I dwelt on this, as I told of the old places and scenes, he sat with his head down, and I suspected tears.

I cannot remember when Dr. Gottlieb was not in love with my Aunt Lucretia, though he had never spoken to her on the subject. He spoke only to me, and that always in the same way. So I knew what was coming. I had heard it before, and when I arose to go I could not help but smile as he said, "Ah, Jack, but your Aunt Lucretia! That most beautiful and charming of women! Did you know that each of us has our prototype in a plant or flower; did you know that she resembles the great red wood lily—lilium Philadelphicum? Ah, Jack, it has always been my favorite."